Pebble In The Sky te-1

by Isaac Asimov

  Schwartz shook his head.

  "Sure," insisted the little man. "It was in the department store. I got you away from that mob." He seemed to double up in artificial laughter. "They thought you had Radiation Fever. You remember."

  Schwartz did, too, vaguely-dimly. A man like this, for a few minutes, and a crowd, which had first stopped them and then parted for them.

  "Yes," he said. "Pleased to meet you." It wasn't very brilliant conversation, but Schwartz could do no better, and the little man did not seem to mind.

  "My name's Natter," he said, shoving out a limp hand at the other. "I didn't get a chance to talk much with you that first time-overlooked it in the crisis of things, you might say-but I'm sure glad to get a second chance…Let's have the mitt."

  "I'm Schwartz." And he touched palms with the other, briefly.

  "How come you're walking?" asked Natter. "Going somewheres?"

  Schwartz shrugged. "Just walking."

  "A hiker, huh? That's for me too. All year round I'm on the road-puts the old kibosh on the grummlies."

  "What?"

  "You know. Makes you full of life. You get to breathe that air and feel the blood pumping, hey?…Walked too far this time. Hate to get back after night by my lonesome. Always glad for the company. Where you going?"

  It was the second time Natter had asked the question, and the Mind Touch made plain the importance attached to it. Schwartz wondered how long he could evade the issue. There was a questing anxiety in the follower's mind. And no lie would do. Schwartz didn't know enough about this new world to lie.

  He said, "I'm going to the hospital."

  "The hospital? What hospital?"

  "I was there when I was in Chica."

  "You mean the Institute. Ain't that it? That's where I took you before, that time in the department store, I mean." Anxiety and increasing tension.

  "To Dr. Shekt," said Schwartz. "Do you know him?"

  "I've heard of him. He's a big shot. Are you sick?"

  "No, but I'm supposed to report once in a while." Did that sound reasonable?

  "Walking?" said Natter. "Doesn't he send a car for you?" Apparently it did not seem reasonable.

  Schwartz said nothing now-a clammy silence.

  Natter, however, was buoyant. "Look here, chum, soon's I pass a public Communi-wave, I'll order a taxi from the city. It'll meet us on the road."

  "A Communi-wave?"

  "Sure. They have 'em all along the highway. See, there's one."

  He took a step away from Schwartz, and the latter found himself in a sudden shriek. "Stop! Don't move."

  Natter stopped. There was a queer coldness in his expression as he turned. "What's eating you, bud?"

  Schwartz found the new language almost inadequate for the rapidity with which he hurled words at the other. "I'm tired of this acting. I know you, and I know what you're going to do. You're going to call somebody to tell them I'm going to Dr. Shekt. They'll be ready for me in the city and they'll send out a car to pick me up. And you'll kill me if I try to get away."

  There was a frown on Natter's face. He muttered, "You're sure right on the gizzbo with that last-" It was not intended for Schwartz's ears, nor did it reach them, but the words rested lightly on the very surface of his Mind Touch.

  Aloud he said, "Mister, you've got me confused. You're shoving a fast one right past my nose." But he was making room, and his hand was drifting toward his hip.

  And Schwartz lost control of himself. He waved his arms in a wild fury. "Leave me alone, why don't you? What have I done to you?…Go away! Go away/"

  He ended in a voice-cracked shriek, his forehead ridged with hate and fear of the creature who stalked him and whose mind was so alive with enmity. His own emotions heaved and thrust at the Mind Touch, attempting to evade the clingingness of it, rid itself of the breath of it

  And it was gone. Suddenly and completely gone. There had been the momentary consciousness of overwhelming pain-not in himself, but in the other-then nothing. No Mind Touch. It had dropped away like the grip of a fist growing lax and dead.

  Natter was a crumpled smear on the darkening highway. Schwartz crept toward him. Natter was a little man, easy to turn over. The look of agony on his face might have been stamped on, deeply, deeply. The lines remained, did not relax. Schwartz felt for the heartbeat and did not find it.

  He straightened in a deluge of self-horror.

  He had murdered a man!

  And then a deluge of amazement- Without touching him! He had killed this man just by hating him, by striking somehow at the Mind Touch.

  What other powers did he have? He made a quick decision. He searched the other's pockets and found money. Good! He could use that. Then he dragged the corpse into the fields and let the high grass cover it.

  He walked on for two hours. No other Mind Touch disturbed him.

  He slept in an open field that night, and the next morning, after two hours more, reached the outskirts of Chica.

  Chica was only a village to Schwartz, and by comparison with the Chicago he remembered, the motion of the populace was still thin and sporadic. Even so, the Mind Touches were for the first time numerous. They amazed and confused him.

  So many! Some drifting and diffuse; some pointed and intense. There were men who passed with their minds popping in tiny explosions; others with nothing inside their skulls but, perhaps, a gentle rumination on the breakfast just completed.

  At first Schwartz turned and jumped with every Touch that passed, taking each as a personal contact; but within the hour he learned to ignore them.

  He was hearing words now, even when "they were not actually mouthed. This was something new, and he found himself listening. They were thin, eery phrases, disconnected and wind-whipped; far off, far off…And with them, living, crawling emotion and other subtle things that cannot be described-so that all the world was a panorama of boiling life visible to himself only.

  He found he could penetrate buildings as he walked, sending his mind in as though it were something he held on a leash, something that could suck its way into crannies invisible to the eye and bring out the bones of men's inner thoughts.

  It was before a huge stone-fronted building that he halted, and considered. They (whoever they were) were after him. He had killed the follower, but there must be others-the others that the follower had wanted to call. It might be best for him to make no move for a few days, and how to do that best?…A job?…"

  He probed the building before which he had stopped. In there was a distant Mind Touch that to him might mean a job. They were looking for textile workers in there-and he had once been a tailor.

  He stepped inside, where he was promptly ignored by everyone. He touched someone's shoulder.

  "Where do I see about a job, please?"

  "Through that door!" The Mind Touch that reached him was full of annoyance and suspicion.

  Through the door, and then a thin, point-chin fellow fired questions at him and fingered the classifying machine onto which he punched the answers.

  Schwartz stammered his lies and truths with equal uncertainty.

  But the personnel man began, at least, with a definite unconcern. The questions were fired rapidly: "Age?… Fifty-two? Hmm. State of health?…Married?…Experience?…Worked with textiles?…Well, what kind?…Thermoplastic? Elastomeric?…What do you mean, you think all kinds?…Whom did you work with last?… Spell his name…You're not from Chica, are you?… Where are your papers?…You'll have to bring them here if you want action taken…What's your registration number?…"

  Schwartz was backing away. He hadn't foreseen this end when he had begun. And the Mind Touch of the man before him was changing. It had become suspicious to the point of single-trackedness, and cautious too. There was a surface layer of sweetness and good-fellowship that was so shallow. and which overlay animosity so thinly, as to De the most dangerous feature of all.

  "I think," said Schwartz nervously, "that I'm not suited for this job."

  "No
, no, come back." And the man beckoned at him. "We have something for you. Just let me look through the files a bit." He was smiling, but his Mind Touch was clearer now and even more unfriendly.

  He had punched a buzzer on his desk- Schwartz, in a sudden panic, rushed for the door.

  "Hold him!" cried the other instantly. dashing from behind his desk.

  Schwartz struck at the Mind Touch, lashing out violently with his own mind, and he heard a groan behind him. He looked quickly over his shoulder. The personnel man was seated on the floor, face contorted and temples buried in his palms. Another man bent over him; then, at an urgent gesture, headed for Schwartz. Schwartz waited no more.

  He was out on the street, fully aware now that there must be an alarm out for him with a complete description made public, and that the personnel man, at least, had recognized him.

  He ran and doubled along the streets blindly. He attracted attention; more of it now, for the streets were filling up-suspicion, suspicion everywhere-suspicion because he ran-suspicion because his clothes were wrinkled and ill-fitting

  In the multiplicity of Mind Touches and in the confusion of his own fear and despair. he could not identify the true enemies, the ones in which there was not only suspicion but certainty, and so he hadn't the slightest warning of the neuronic whip.

  There was only that awful pain, which descended like the whistle of a lash and remained like the crush of a rock. For seconds he coasted down the slope of that descent into agony before drifting into the black.

  13. Spider Web At Washenn

  The grounds of the College of Ancients in Washenn are nothing if not sedate. Austerity is the key word, and there is something authentically grave about the clustered knots of novices taking their evening stroll among the trees of the Quadrangle-where none but Ancients might trespass. Occasionally the green-robed figure of a Senior Ancient might make its way across the lawn, receiving reverences graciously.

  And, once in a long while, the High Minister himself might appear.

  But not as now, at a half run, almost in a perspiration, disregarding the respectful raising of hands, oblivious to the cautious stares that followed him, the blank looks at one another, the slightly raised eyebrows.

  He burst into the Legislative Hall by the private entrance and broke into an open run down the empty, step-ringing ramp. The door that he thundered at opened at the foot pressure of the one within, and the High Minister entered.

  His Secretary scarcely looked up from behind his small, plain desk, where he hunched over a midget Field-shielded Televisor, listening intently and allowing his eyes to rove over a quire or so of official-looking communications that piled high before him.

  The High Minister rapped sharply on the desk. "What is this? What is going on?"

  The Secretary's eyes flicked coldly at him, and the Televisor was put to one side. "Greetings, Your Excellency."

  "Greet me no greetings!" retorted the High Minister impatiently. "I want to know what is going on."

  "In a sentence, our man has escaped."

  "You mean the man who was treated by Shekt with the Synapsifier-the Outsider-the spy-the one on the farm outside Chica-"

  It is uncertain how many qualifications the High Minister, in his anxiety, might have rattled out had not the Secretary interrupted with an indifferent "Exactly."

  "Why was I not informed? Why am I never informed?"

  "Immediate action was necessary and you were engaged. I substituted, therefore, to the best of my ability."

  "Yes, you are careful about my engagements when you wish to do without me. Now, I'll not have it. I will not permit myself to be by-passed and sidetracked. I will not-"

  "We delay," was the reply at ordinary speaking volume, and the High Minister's half shout faded. He coughed, hovered uncertainly at further speech, then said mildly:

  "What are the details, Balkis?"

  "Scarcely any. After two months of patient waiting, with nothing to show for it, this man Schwartz left-was followed-and was lost."

  "How lost?"

  "We are not sure, but there is a further fact. Our agent, Natter, missed three reporting periods last night. His alternates set out after him along the highway toward Chica and found him at dawn. He was in a ditch at the side of the highway-quite dead."

  The High Minister paled. "The Outsider had killed him?"

  "Presumably, though we cannot say certainly. There were no visible signs of violence other than a look of agony on the dead face. There will be an autopsy, of course. He might have died of a stroke just at that inconvenient moment."

  "That would be an incredible coincidence."

  "So I think, " was the cool response, "but if Schwartz killed him, it makes subsequent events puzzling. You see, Your Excellency, it seemed quite obvious from our previous analysis that Schwartz would make for Chica in order to see Shekt, and Natter was found dead on the highway between the Maren farm and Chica. We therefore sent out an alarm to that city three hours ago and the man was caught."

  "Schwartz?" incredulously.

  "Certainly."

  "Why didn't you say that immediately?"

  Balkis shrugged. "Your Excellency, there is more important work to be done. I said that Schwartz was in our hands. Well, he was caught quickly and easily, and that fact does not seem to me to jibe very well with the death of Natter. How could he be at once so clever as to detect and kill Natter-a most capable man-and so stupid as to enter Chica the very next morning and openly enter a factory, without disguise, to find a job?'

  "Is that what he did?"

  "That's what he did…There are two possible thoughts that this gives rise to, therefore. Either he has already transmitted such information as he has to Shekt or Arvardan, and has now let himself be caught in order to divert out attention, or else other agents are involved, whom we have not detected and whom he is now covering. In either case, we must not be overconfident."

  "I don't know," said the High Minister helplessly, his handsome face twisted into anxious lines. "It gets too deep for me."

  Balkis smiled with more than a trace of contempt and volunteered a statement. "You have an appointment four hours from now with Professor Bel Arvardan."

  "I have? Why? What am I to say to him? I don't want to see him."

  "Relax. You must see him, Your Excellency. It seems obvious to me that since the date of commencement of his fictitious expedition is approaching, he must play out the game by asking you for permission to investigate the Forbidden Areas. Ennius warned us he would, and Ennius must know exactly the details of this comedy. I suppose that you are able to return him froth for froth in this matter and to counter pretense with pretense."

  The High Minister bowed his head. "Well, I shall try."

  Bel Arvardan arrived in good time, and was able to look about him. To a man well acquainted with the architectural triumphs of all the Galaxy, the College of Ancients could scarcely seem more than a brooding block of steel-ribbed granite, fashioned in an archaic style. To one who was an archaeologist as well, it might signify, in its gloomy, nearly savage austerity, the proper home of a gloomy, nearly savage way of life. It's very primitiveness marked the turning back of eyes to the far past.

  And Arvardan's thoughts slipped away once again. His two-month tour about Earth's western continents had proven not quite-amusing. That first day had ruined things. He found himself thinking back to that day at Chica.

  He was instantly angry with himself for thinking about it again. She had been rude, egregiously ungrateful, a common Earthgirl. Why should he feel guilty? And yet…

  Had he made allowances for her shock at discovering him to be an Outsider, like that officer who had insulted her and whose arrogant brutality he had repaid with a broken arm? After all, how could he know how much she had already suffered at the hands of Outsiders? And then to find out, like that, without any softening of the blow, that he was one.

  If he had been more patient…Why had he broken it off so brutally? He didn't even remembe
r her name. It was Pola something. Strange! His memory was ordinarily better than that. Was it an unconscious effort to forget?

  Well, that made sense. Forget! What was there to remember, anyway? An Earthgirl. A common Earthgirl.

  She was a nurse in a hospital. Suppose he tried to locate the hospital. It had been just a vague blot in the night when he parted from her, but it must be in the neighborhood of that Foodomat.

  He snatched at the thought and broke into a thousand angry fragments. Was he mad? What would he have gained? She was an Earthgirl. Pretty, sweet, somehow entic- An Earthgirl!

  The High Minister was entering, and Arvardan was glad. It meant relief from that day in Chica. But, deep in his mind, he knew that they would return. They-the thoughts, that is-always did.

  As for the High Minister, his robe was new and glistening in its freshness. His forehead showed no trace of haste or doubt; perspiration might have been a stranger to it.

  And the conversation was friendly, indeed. Arvardan was at pains to mention the well-wishings of some of the great men of the Empire to the people of Earth. The High Minister was as careful to express the thorough gratification that must be felt by all Earth at the generosity and enlightenment of the Imperial Government.

  Arvardan expounded on the importance of archaeology to Imperial philosophy, on its contribution to the great conclusion that all humans of whatever world of the Galaxy were brothers-and the High Minister agreed blandly and pointed out that Earth had long held such to be the case and could only hope that the time would shortly come when the rest of the Galaxy might turn theory into practice.

  Arvardan smiled very shortly at that and said, "It is for that very purpose, Your Excellency, that I have approached you. The differences between Earth and some of the Imperial Dominions neighboring it rest largely, perhaps, on differing ways of thinking. Still, a good deal of friction could be removed if it could be shown that Earthmen were not different, racially, from other Galactic citizens."